packetnews/xdccspy.com trouble

Hey guys, I just formatted my computer and got it all updated. I use packetnews.com and xdccspy to search for tv eps that I have missed recently since my vcr is broken. Now that I have reformatted, when I click on the packs on those pages, it gives me a page cannot be displayed error instead of opening irc like it usually did. I have the same setup as before, same version of IE, same updates, same irc version. I checked my security settings for IE, and if it's not enabled, its set to prompt, so i'm not sure what's stopping this from working. Mabey some one here knows how these pages work and can help me :)
Much appreciated